BLACKBERRY YELLOW VEIN ASSOCIATED VIRUS: A NEW CRINIVIRUS FOUND IN BLACKBERRY

During the last three years blackberries in southern and southeastern U.S. have shown symptoms of vein clearing, yellow mottling and plant decline with considerable variation in symptoms with cultivars.
We isolated dsRNA from symptomatic plants and identified high molecular weight bands similar to those isolated from plants infected with criniviruses.
Paired extractions from virus-tested blackberries did not yield any dsRNA bands with molecular weight greater than 500 bp.
Using degenerate primers developed against the crinivirus 1b protein in RT-PCR resulted in an amplicon that when sequenced showed the virus was a member of the Crinivirus genus.
We have also cloned the virus and sequenced clones containing regions of the minor coat protein of the virus.
Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the new virus, designated as Blackberry yellow vein associated virus (BYVaV), is related most closely to Beet pseudo-yellows virus and Strawberry pallidosis associated virus, two criniviruses recently identified in strawberry.

X International Symposium on Small Fruit Virus Diseases

R.R. Martin, I.E. Tzanetakis, R. Gergerich, G. Fernández, Z. Pesic

Closteroviruses, Criniviruses, dsRNA, RT-PCR

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.656.21